Arrowmask: Godkillers of the Shrouded Vast

by John Ruch

  “Yes, a bit of smuggling, a bit of privateering, but nothing too brutal, no sinking passenger ships or—”

  “You are a pirate!” she shouted gleefully, her eyes wide and gleaming. She took a step toward him, uncomfortably close. Before he could massage the facts further, she demanded, “Were you ever sold into slavery!”

  “No,” he began, then detected the slightest falling of her face. The dog of dishonesty perked its ears inside him and smelled its dinner. “I mean, not for long. No, I led a mutiny from the oar-benches after a week or so. I vowed never to be captured again, and I never have.”

  “You bought your freedom with their blood!” she cried, looking up at him worshipfully.

  Ashton tapped his finger on the air and nodded in her direction with a quick simper. “Exactly,” he said, wondering what in Night and Death they were talking about.

  She suddenly backpedaled and plopped down on the edge of her cot. Her feet didn’t quite touch the floor and she kicked them excitedly. “That’s totally great!” she offered, beaming.

  Ashton shrugged casually and pulled up a crate to sit on. He brushed it with a hand, only to find it was scrupulously clean, like all the other junk in the room. He leaned on his knees and considered the little crackpot who might be his new employee, though he felt like the one undergoing interrogation.

  She was plain-faced and makeup free, but strikingly cute with her button nose and enormous dark eyes and round high-cheeked face and full lips. Her smile was a charmer. He felt a stab of attraction counterbalanced by a dash of guilt in the fact that she could pass for a ten-year-old. Thin as a rapier, but she sat upright with a sense of the strength he had seen on impressive display out on the floor.

  He looked at her tiny agile hands, their fingertips touching as they rested on her lap. At first glance, they had the same delicacy as the rest of her, but he noticed her nails were cut to a fighter’s shortness, and he detected a paw-like supple toughness to her palms.

  Taking in her currently blissful expression, he wondered if she was nuts or just an eccentric foreigner from some weird alien culture. Unlike the very sane and normal Cor Cordum, naturally.

  “What in Night and Fury are you doing in a dump like this anyhow?” Ashton asked, fending off the thrust of the conversation.

  “I came in to find out what a ladle is!” she cried.

  Ashton closed his eyes in near-physical pain. It was incredible that she was still alive. He’d be missing teeth if he pulled some prank like that.

  “I knew what a blade is, but not a ladle!” she continued, holding out her hands as if in some nameless desperation. “Monsieur Ilmun thought that was totally funny! Then four men all wanted to fight me and that was no problem! Monsieur Ilmun laughed about that also and told me I could work here! I get this room and also coins that I save up to go see plays!”

  “Plays,” Ashton repeated.

  She nodded once, firmly, her glossy bangs shimmering.

  “A ladle is a cup with a long handle on it!” she suddenly lectured.

  “It’s great you found that out.”

  “Totally!”

  Ashton laughed lightly in a way that enlivened her smile. “You’re one of a kind, Mieux. Is that a Vyrkanian name?”

  “Mieux is a name from Shardai and that is what people here call me. But most people do not talk to me at all.” She lowered her eyes to her feet, which paused their kicking.

  He hadn’t considered that. This might be the longest conversation she’d had in a two-month. Or maybe ever.

  “What are you doing so far from home? You’re obviously not a merchant.”

  She drew herself up an extra half-inch. “I am an equilibrique of the Sénche-do!” she cried.

  “What does that mean?” He caught himself almost shouting instead of asking, in her fashion.

  She rolled her huge eyes. “You would have to know the One-Thousand-And-Three Fables just for starters to understand! And there is no way that you do!”

  He rubbed his chin in a masquerade of pondering. “I only know a thousand-and-two of them,” he cracked. She only blinked silently. “You got me there. Well, what’s the Sénche?”

  “Mostly it’s a school where we learn all the skills to tell every single one of the great Shardaian fables!” she cried. “But after Monsieur Sénche got chased out of Shardai a long time ago because of some big misunderstanding, he learned a bunch of great wisdom from the Kundhii people. So we use that also to tell the fables even better!”

  “What kind of wisdom?”

  Mieux screwed up her tiny mouth and looked up the ceiling with a mystical air. “It is the heat upon the sand, the cold upon the snow, the wet upon the water.”

  “Some sort of priestess, huh? Of Nature or something? You don’t quite sound like the ones we have here.” He thought of Alfie and his constipated Blue Weàlish mannerisms.

  “You don’t sound like a pirate, either!” she cried. “Sometimes life is just like in a play and sometimes it is way different,” she added, with a hint of sadness.

  He found himself laughing again. He had a few more questions, but they didn’t really matter anymore. He liked her, with her shameless freakishness and incomprehensible conversation and big eyes and bigger mouth. She was undervalued, underestimated, locked in the junk room to sleep—and all that made him want to travel halfway across the Empire with her more than anything else.

  “Did the Sénche-do teach you to fight like that?”

  She rolled her eyes again. “The Sénche-tasha is where I learned to fight crazy people! The Sénche-do is what you learn all about at the Sénche-tasha!” she harangued, holding out her hands as if hefting the “do” in one palm and the “tasha” in the other.

  “Obviously. Silly of me.”

  Mieux half-closed her eyes as if to say, “Think nothing of it.” Her feet had resumed kicking, like the twitching of a cat’s tail.

  “How did you see me up in the shadows of the ceiling?”

  “It was easy!” she said, without elaborating.

  No point in pushing. She’d probably just say it was the Sénche-do again, he thought.

  “I’ve answered at least ten questions and you have said nothing about the kings of the Tetragate Empire!” she cried.

  “Fair enough.”

  He explained as best he could, given the limits of her vocab. Mieux kicked her feet happily at the idea of a wagon ride and demanded to know what color horses would pull it. She had some understanding of magica from watching plays and laughed metallically at his mention of the “Stone Master.” Those glorious black-opal eyes widened when he explained the Tetragate commission and how the counsel had kept tabs on her.

  She got up slowly and lifted the tablecloth from the clothing rack, taking up a strange white cowl from a shelf atop it. “They do reward those who follow their decrees!” she said with a quaver in her voice. Another bizarre circus ritual, Ashton figured. Maybe the Sénche were hat-worshipers.

  “The Sénche-do is a way, not a destination, and the duty of a Purple Robe equilibrique is to travel it,” she said with resolution. “I shall come with you, even though I will miss seeing plays.”

  Ashton grinned. “There’s probably a theater or two in the cities along the way,” he tossed in encouragingly.

  She nodded. “I must get the blessing of Monsieur Ilmun as well. I hope he’ll be safe without me.”

  As if by a spellcalling, Ilmun barged into the room, his malformed face even more twisted than usual, his black hatchet held loose in one hand. His eyes rolled wildly. Before he could speak, a familiar crude voice from the main tavern floor bellowed, “Bring us that bouncer bitch!”

  The roar of dark laughter that went up to applaud that remarkably unwitty alliteration spoke to the gambling sailors returned with some mates, maybe their full crew. Ashton sprang into action, which is to say, he started looking around for a hiding place or delivery chute. What kind of dive doesn’t have a back door? he silently complained.

  Meanwhile,
Mieux’s eyes narrowed into darkly burning slashes. She darted silently past Ilmun, out the door, and into the main room.

  Ilmun turned to Ashton as if he were a city watchman or back-up bouncer or anything other than a small-time smuggler with spectacularly bad timing.

  “They’re killing everyone. They’ll take her apart,” Illmun grunted.

  “Shit,” Ashton replied. He sighed. Even if there were a back door standing wide open right now, he’d probably go get himself gutted alongside that adorable nutjob anyway. He was too much the believer in Fortune, or Loyalty, or the one they really needed a temple to, Stupidity.

  “Just so you know, I can’t juggle,” he warned as he followed Mieux’s trail past the barkeep and into the chaos.

  There were ten—no, twelve—of them, he counted as he drew his sword and nervously chewed his tongue. The fat one with the filthy beard led the pack, such as it was—an ugly crew, some with face-brands marking them as convicts, one with a nose half-rotten from a common whore-borne disease, and the lot of them giving off a rank cargo-hold stench. Hard men who killed for a living and who were not going to accept their own being beaten by a bouncer or a jester or a girl—let alone all of the above.

  The tavern crowd that couldn’t flee pressed against the walls, trying to keep out of the reach of the waving blades. One hadn’t and lay dying against the jamb of the entrance, paying for the crime of cheering Mieux on earlier.

  The little bouncer herself was poised in a fighting stance, legs spread and fists raised. For once, she wasn’t saying anything at all, which was even more unnerving than her shouting. Like Ashton, she’d been in this place long enough to know that nothing could be said to stop this sort of scene from ending bloody. The only question was whose blood. Without a little creativity, the answer was likely to be not only Ashton and Mieux’s, but most of the patrons’ as well.

  Mieux gave Ashton the slightest of glances as he approached. The gang moved in on her like a wave about to crash on a sand castle. Only a couple of them took any notice of the lanky rogue, one blade to their dozen.

  “Hey, Goat-Beard! Need a shave?” Ashton shouted boldly, his mouth filling with the acid taste of excitement. He sounded like a man with a plan. Now to figure out what it was. He took a step forward, keeping one of the tables between them.

  The tubby ringleader turned like dreadnought and focused on Ashton, brandishing his battle-notched blade and eyeing the rogue’s expensive weapon. Greed and distraction—Ashton’s old friends. He’d recognize them anywhere, and always rely on them for help.

  “We’ll rape some respect into you, too, bitch. Just wait your turn,” Beardy responded with a guffaw that spread among his crew like one of their many contagious diseases. It wouldn’t be Ashton’s first time after a brutal life on the Godsblood, which only made his stomach turn harder and his rage burn hotter.

  “Oh, uh, sir, I didn’t mean anything. P-please,” Ashton rambled. He willed his hand to shake and dropped his sword clumsily on the tabletop, cursing in a meek whisper. He raised his hands in surrender, looking for all the world like a scrawny thief who had nicked a fine weapon but never learned to use it.

  “Don’t injure him!” Mieux cried.

  “Ha!” the sailor snorted triumphantly. “All words, no balls!”

  As he reached for the black-bronze prize on the table, Ashton drew the short-bladed fist-dagger he wore concealed as a buckle on his jerkin’s shoulder strap and punched the steel through the back of Beardy’s meaty hand. He followed up with a fast left-hand jab to the jackass’s throat, feeling the windpipe give way under his knuckles with a satisfying gurgle.

  Fury took wing among the crew, most of it flying toward him. They were losing focus on Mieux, and Ashton knew that would be their next fatal mistake. Problem was, it could still be a fatal mistake for himself, too. He snatched up his sword in his left hand and made a wild swing. In the dangerously close quarters, it was enough to take off half a branded face.

  “Leave my friend alone!” Mieux cried, finally releasing her coiled tension in a roundhouse kick to the ribs of the nearest thug.

  Clowning time was over. Bones gave way with a sound like a door being knocked down, followed by the sort of throat-splitting screaming that curdled the blood even when it came from an enemy. She sprang instantly on another sailor, bringing an elbow down hard on his knee, then standing up to punch his chin as he fell. The cracking of thigh and spine was nauseating to hear. But Ashton found it in himself to smile recklessly. They were underestimating her. And him.

  He backpedaled, warding off sword thrusts, and made a neat back-hop onto another table. From there, he pulled himself back into the rafters. Mieux, now a spinning purple ball, somersaulted up beside him on a parallel beam. Their eyes met, hers serious slashes, his dancing with wildfire.

  “Not so crazy being on the ceiling after all, huh?” he said, grinning.

  “Pay attention to fighting!” she lectured. “You are a silly man if you make jokes now!”

  With a clamor of steel and rather uncreative cursing, the crew began climbing up after them. The patrons took the opportunity to flee, a few of them kind enough to toss bottles and chairs at the killers on their way out. Mieux twirled off the beam again and landed on someone with both feet. Five of the remaining crew followed Ashton, hopping from tabletop to tabletop, as he skittered along the beam. He looked for a chance to take.

  Heady fumes suddenly filled his nose—the crude but effective rum they sold by the gallon. He glanced down and saw a broken bottle tossed by one of the fleeing patrons, and the sticky pool it left all over the floor and table. He reached out for a nearby chandelier and plucked its candles, wincing as the molten wax sloshed over his fingers.

  Tossing the handful of flames into the rum cost him several slashes to the chest that sent him sprawling to the floor and would have opened him up if he hadn’t been wearing his leathers. But it was worth it as the alcohol ignited and the thugs found themselves wading in a pond of blue fire. It was too weak to burn them to death, but it was distracting enough for Ashton to run four of them through.

  A heavy wet smack, and the fifth toppled as well, revealing Ilmun and his bloody hatchet standing there. Waiting until it was safe to finish the job—a man after Ashton’s own heart. They nodded at each other like old pros.

  Ashton turned his attention to Mieux, who was engaged with the remaining four. “Four men all wanted to fight me and that was no problem!” she had told him earlier, and he could believe it now. She moved with a sparrow’s twitchy speed, seeming to deliver blow after blow with no transitional motion.

  Two thugs fell quickly, their limbs pointing in sickeningly wrong directions. The other two changed tactics, seizing one of the tables as a ram and trying to contain the little whirlwind by driving her into the fireplace. There was a crash loud enough to hurt Ashton’s ears, and he had the horrible feeling that they had broken Mieux against the mantle.

  But it was Mieux who had broken the table, impossibly punching through the half-inch-thick hardwood and splitting its stout base. She caught the sailors off-guard and off-balance, their mouths still open in surprise as she danced and cartwheeled her soles into them. They dropped heavily.

  The odd trio of survivors stood in place a moment in the sudden silence as the blue flames flickered out. The shakes hit Ashton and he thought he might drop his sword for real this time until he steadied it with both hands.

  Ilmun was the first to move, stalking around the room and ending any wriggling with a swing of his hatchet. Ashton wrinkled his nose in distaste, but he was too tired to object, and he could hardly blame the barkeep for wanting to avoid a second round of vengeance. In the far corner, Mieux stood placidly, murmuring something like a prayer as she surveyed the corpses. But he noticed a couple of slash marks that laid open flaps of cloth on her arm and shoulder and showed red beneath.

  “Hey, are you alright?”

  “I am fine,” she said quietly, though a quiet tone from her did not bode w
ell.

  Still, she trotted lightly toward him, skipping over the fallen thugs. She looked up at him with eyes shimmering with a rippling film of tears. For an unsteady moment he feared she was suppressing some horrible sword-wound pain and would start coughing up blood. Instead, she hugged him in a grip liable to make him her next victim and rubbed her little face against his jerkin like a puppy, still looking up at him.

  “You came back to fight by my side!” came her muffled cry into his clothing. “You’re my friend!” Matching tears spilled from the corners of her eyes as she looked up devotedly.

  “Sure,” he said, gritting his teeth. “They were totally crazy.”

  She giggled into his chest, still squeezing mightily. He gave a half-hug back, bending a little to match her size. It was like embracing a granite statue. Skinny as she was, her body still somehow had the warm strength of a fine-grained wood. He tapped her shoulder.

  “Mieux. I’d like to inhale again sometime within the hour.”

  She released him, but continued clutching the hem of his cloak. He surveyed the carnage. Two against twelve. Pretty impressive. For once, he wouldn’t have to tweak this story when he told Violet.

  Undoubtedly there was a black-sailed ship hidden in some cove nearby that would miss slipping away on the morning tide as its captain cursed its absentee crew. Just as certain was the Watch swarming this place soon. A baker’s dozen of corpses were too many to just toss into the street, even in the Blade & Ladle’s part of town. He didn’t intend to stick around and answer questions. He grabbed an intact bottle of rum from a nearby table, took a fortifying swig, and thought about the fastest way to get Mieux out of there.

  Ilmun finished with his finishing-off and was headed back to the bar with fistfuls of knives for his collection. Mieux trotted after him, dragging Ashton behind her by his cloak with the power of a leashed dog determined to track a squirrel in the park.